Destiny: The Girl in the Box #9 (18 page)

“I wish,” Ariadne said from her place down the table. “I arranged the transport myself.”

“Wow,” Kat said from her place next to Janus down the table to my right, “that uhm … doesn’t really seem like the smartest move. You know, strategically speaking.” She tilted her head and flipped her blond hair off her skinny neck, wide eyes still staring at me.

“This is a volunteer army,” I said, trying to gauge the mood at the table. Scott was still sullen, down a little ways to the left. Reed was sitting at the opposite end next to my mother, who was watching me wordlessly, face a mask. “I can’t force people to fight.”

“But could your new telepath friend?” Agent Li was sitting about midway down the left side of the conference table, and he had been watching Dr. Zollers suspiciously since Zollers had entered the room. I wondered if Zollers was insulted by it, but then I remembered he could read Li’s mind and probably realized that he wasn’t being singled out for this treatment; Li was suspicious of everyone.

“It’s possible,” Zollers said mildly, “but I don’t think Sienna wanted to cross that particular line.”

“Oh, so we finally found one she won’t cross,” Scott said. “Good to know.”

Reed frowned at him. “What’s that all about?”

“He’s angry because we burst into the Century safe house in Vegas with guns-a-blazing,” I said. “He doesn’t feel it was a ‘fair’ fight.”

“All’s fair in love and war,” Reed said with a shrug.

“But presumably you wouldn’t use a shotgun in your love life,” Kat said, her pretty face crimped in concentration. “Although if you did, it would explain why you don’t have a girlfriend.”

“I don’t have a girlfriend because we’re at the end of days for our people,” Reed said at something slightly less than a growl, “and for some reason I’m overly focused on the imminent danger to our lives rather than the somewhat less pressing need to get laid.”

There was a stark silence at the table until my mother spoke up. “Good priorities,” she said, all business. “Now, perhaps we could talk more about this war we’re fighting and focus less on the inferred sex lives of our elderly members?” She cast an uncomfortable look toward Janus and Kat, who blushed.

“What is our next move?” Janus asked, and I could hear his discomfort. He turned toward me. He still looked awfully weathered, as though his time in a coma had not been at all restful.

“Offense,” I said. “We need to attack and keep attacking. A counter-blow is eventually coming, and we need to stay tight and sweep as many of their pawns off the table as we can before it connects.”

“What about our pawns?” Li asked, and I wondered if he was doing it just to be aggravating. “Doesn’t the thought of losing them concern you?”

“If we turtle up and try to play defense again like we did before,” I said, “we will lose. They will come for us, they will overwhelm us, and they will probably kill all of you. If we can strike them and take as many of them as possible piecemeal before that happens, we might—maybe—be able to even the odds enough to win the final fight.”

“Wow, that was stirring,” Reed said into the shocked silence that followed my pronouncement. “Such confidence.”

“Would you like me to lie to you?” I didn’t snap at him, just laid it out there without a lot of care. “By my count there are six metas at this table in the fight and a little over eighty of them remaining on Century’s team.”

“Seven,” Janus said quietly. “I think you have forgotten to count yourself.”

“What?” I looked around. “Sorry. Seven. You’re right, I forgot myself. Foreman makes eight, if he’s available.” I leaned forward. “And if anyone wants to take themselves out of that number, now would be the time to do it, because I need everyone to be all-in from here on out.”

“Where’s the line, Sienna?” Scott turned his chair to face me, looking down the black-glass table. “What won’t we do to stop Century?”

“There’s nothing I won’t do to stop Century.” I felt my jaw harden in resolve as I spoke.

“Would you kill civilians?” Scott asked.

I hesitated. “No. I mean, why would I have to—”

“Because they’ll use them as shields,” Scott said, dark clouds brewing over his face. “If they know that’s your line, don’t you think they’ll find a way to start hiding behind people? Take hostages for their safe houses; start executing them when you break down a door? I mean, they basically had Zollers like that, they just failed to finish him. Are you willing to kill innocent people to win this fight?”

I froze. I hadn’t even considered that.

“You’re damned right,” my mother said from the opposite end of the table. “Do you know what those peoples' lives will be worth if Century wins? Not a damned thing.”

Scott wheeled to face her. “So you think Century’s plan is to wipe out every person on the face of the earth?”

“I don’t know what Century’s plan is,” my mother said, and I could see the tautness in the way she answered. If this had been our house, and Scott had been me, he’d be heading toward the box right now. “But I know it involves conquest and control, which means anyone who survives is going to be stooping and bowing to Sovereign’s new world order.” She folded her arms in front of her. “Better to be dead now than a servant in whatever ‘paradise’ he’s got planned.”

“That’s not your choice to make,” Ariadne said, flushed. “Some people would rather live—”

“Like slaves?” My mother cut her off. “Peasants in the service of a dictator?”

“Yes,” Janus said slowly. “Some would willingly choose to live for nothing in a horrible half-life where the boot of Century rests forever on the back of their neck rather than risk dying in an effort to throw that boot off. I have seen it, time and again, over the years of my life.”

“Well, before we all go crying, ‘FREEDOM!’ and tossing our big swords through the air,” Reed said dryly, “maybe we could focus on the here and now, where Century hasn’t yet decided to start holding people hostage.”

“Don’t you get it?” Scott said, turning his dull eyes to Reed. “We’re already wandering out past the lines we would have drawn a year ago when we were fighting Omega. I want to know how far she’s going to go to win this war. Where is the new line? What’s the limit for what she’s willing to do to beat Sovereign and Century?”

“It sounds to me like you’re asking at what point we surrender,” my mother said coldly, “and my answer to that is that we ought to fight to the last breath, because you’re going to be dead anyway ten seconds after you offer your surrender to Century. They will kill us all.” She looked down the table. “Human and meta alike.”

“You don’t know that,” Scott said, a little louder.

“If you are a metahuman, I would say the evidence is fairly compelling,” Janus said.

“But the humans,” Scott said. “We don’t know what they mean to do. We don’t know what’s going to happen.” He looked me full in the eyes. “I hope you know I’m not a coward. I want to live, but I’m not afraid to die in the course of this. But what we’re doing is …” He swallowed hard. “Sienna, what we’re doing is horrible. We walked into that house and took lives like it was the most inconsequential thing in the world. Like we were swatting flies, or stomping on ants.” He leaned over the table, and I could see his heart break as he spoke. “You were so … cold about it … like it was just nothing—”

“Scott,” I said, cutting him off. “Later.” I looked around the table, and saw the truth in the eyes of almost everyone else. My mom got it; she was looking away. Janus got it; his head was lowered. Reed was the opposite, but I could see he’d caught it, too. His head was leaned back and he was staring at the ceiling. Zollers knew; of course he did. He’d read it in Scott’s mind from the beginning, and part of me cursed him for not telling me. He cast me a sympathetic look from down the table.

Scott just sat there, mouth slightly open, like he wanted to say something else. I hoped he wouldn’t, though, not now. We had a war to plan, after all, and this was a distraction that needed to be dealt with in private. And it would be, right after the meeting. I just hoped it wasn’t too late.

Because Scott had finally seen what everyone else already knew, and I’d been too dumb to realize it. Scott had finally opened his eyes—his naïve, half-lidded eyes—and seen the real Sienna Nealon, the one who had been brought back into the world after that cold, autumn night when the Directorate exploded around her and her boss had forced her to kill her own boyfriend.

Now he was finally seeing it, seeing the darkness within me. The hard, razor-edged me who had been there all along … and it had scared him so badly I might lose him forever.

After the meeting, I’d only had about five seconds with Scott before the interruption had come. It was just enough time to look him in the eye, open my mouth and start to say something before the knock had come at my door. I was standing inches away from him next to my desk, close enough to hear his every breath, close enough to catch the faint whiff of his manly cologne. I caught the hurt in his eyes as I grimaced and said, “Yes?”

The door cracked open and Ariadne poked her head in. “Problem.”

“Don’t talk to me about problems,” I said, looking around Scott at her, “talk to me about solutions.”

She cocked her head and gave me the annoyed look I had always associated with mothers for some reason. I caught it from Ariadne more of the time than even from my own mother, who tended more toward spitting rage than plain annoyance. “We got a report of a dead body in Minneapolis.”

I felt my facial muscles tighten. “I, uh … I don’t want to be unfeeling as I say this, but I believe that’s a somewhat common occurrence in Minneapolis.”

“Killed in broad daylight,” Ariadne brandished a piece of paper. “Witnesses report that a large man with red hair held the victim up in the air as he crumpled his lower head like he was squeezing a pop can.”

I stared at her. “Okay, so, maybe not so common.” I shot a look of apology at Scott, whose expression was already shrouded, like he was hiding what he felt—but poorly. “We should—”

“Go check it out, yeah,” Scott said, and the sullenness came out. “Always the mission.”

I wanted to slap him across the face and remind him that failure of the mission meant his death, at which point we’d never have a chance to explore his fragile emotions, but I decided that wouldn’t produce the right results. So I shut up. “We can talk on the way, if you’d like—”

“Go on without me,” he said, shaking his head. “Maybe we’ll talk when you get back.”

I shot a pleading look at Ariadne, but she just shrugged, and I turned my focus back to Scott, who was now stone-faced. “Go on. You’ve got important things to do.”

“Yes,” I said, “and pulling you back in the boat is right at the top of my list.”

“I’m not out of your boat quite yet,” he said, “but you might consider taking a break from rowing when you get back if you want me to keep from falling out.”

I felt a pained expression paralyze my face. Did he really not see what was at stake? Was it not obvious that this was what NEEDED to be done? “We’ll talk when I get back,” I said, and let my fingers brush his face. I cringed as I passed, realizing that I’d just used up three or four seconds of my allotted time to touch him for the day, and I might need them later to help soothe him.

I passed Ariadne as she held the door open for me and almost ran into Reed, who was standing just behind her. “Why are you lurking?” I asked him as the three of us awkwardly tried to clear out of my doorway. The noise of the cubicle farm behind him carried over a pleasant hum of activity, even at this late hour of the day.

“I was over there talking to one of the analysts and I heard Ariadne’s news,” Reed said with a tight smile. “Figured I’d go with you to Minneapolis.”

“Lovely,” I said, “you can drive.” I started past him.

“What is it with you and driving?” he asked as he fell in behind me on the way to the elevators.

“I don’t feel comfortable doing it,” I said as I pressed the call button. The sharp ding of the elevator arrival tone followed a half-second later. “I mean, I’ve only been driving for a year and a half or so. I’ve taken the courses, and I
can
do it, I’d just rather someone else do it.”

“Well, okay, Miss Daisy,” he said as the elevator doors slid closed with a low thumping noise. The elevator box smelled stuffy, nothing like the brisk fall air I’d gotten a taste of outside. “I can drive.”

I looked over at him. “You’re not going to give me crap about playing rough with Century, are you? Because if so, I can drive myself—”

He held up a hand to stay me. “I’m not super enthused about what you’re doing, but it’s dire times. I think Scott’s problem is that he’s shaken because he hasn’t killed many people and—I mean, he’s not really over the first kill thing yet, and now you’ve got him taking a shotgun to unarmed people.” He shrugged. “It’s messy. I remember my first kill rattling me. Didn’t yours give you the guilt for a while?”

“Kinda sorta not really,” I said. “But my first kill was Wolfe, so …”

The elevators dinged open in the lobby and I started to get out, but found someone blocking the path. “Janus,” I said with a nod, and tried to pass him. He shifted to block my path, and it took me only a second to realize he was doing it intentionally. “Let me guess—we need to talk.”

“It is almost as though you are reading my mind,” Janus said with a faint smile that didn’t crinkle the crow’s feet at his eyes. “You are going out?”

“Checking out a body in Minneapolis,” I said as we crossed the lobby and passed through the security checkpoint. “Reports indicate it could be a meta attack.”

“Lovely,” he said, his tone suggesting it was anything but. “I will accompany you.”

“This isn’t about your former Omega recruits that just bailed on us, is it?” I asked, sending him a look laden with reproach.

“What? No,” he said with a shake of the head as we cleared the front doors and the fall breeze whipped around us, rattling the heavy door. “They have made their choices, and while I regret that Karthik failed to realize that he would better serve the greater good by remaining here with us, I think having them gone will free you to focus on the important business of waging an offensive war, as you have stated is your intention. Keeping them here, worrying about defending them, it was all a distraction.”